


The Art of War

by FlightOfInsanity



Series: Halo Shorts [4]
Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Family Feels, Forerunners, Gen, Ur-Didad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-28
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-05-16 20:26:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5839834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlightOfInsanity/pseuds/FlightOfInsanity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of (mis)adventures.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lesson 1: Three Against One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The Ur-Didact summons memories of children from long ago. The young ones leap and scamper about, and I glimpse the Didact in those far-gone years, reaching out to lift a young female to his shoulders, or parrying a stick playfully swung by a young male, or bending to pet a furry creature held by another child…" (Halo: Silentium)

It was the quiet that tipped him off.

Decades of training had honed his instincts into a sort of built-in sensor net. While it was nowhere near as accurate as the sensor suites in his armor, the sense of wrongness in the back of his mind had a tendency to come in handy. Particularly now, as he stood just inside one of the main common areas of his own estate, armor-free and trying to determine what was wrong.

The Didact cast a quick glance at the nearest of his wife’s terrariums, the little biome being home to a few shy avian reptiles from a distant desert world.  The little creatures were engaged in some sort of game and didn’t seem to be spooked by anything so… no intruder at least.

His mouth ticked down and his eyes narrowed in frustration. If nothing was out of place and there was no intruder, then what-

A soft shuffle of fabric made him cast his gaze to a large block of seating to one side of the room. 

_Ah, of course._

He took a few slow steps into the room and heard another shuffle of fabric and what might have been a quick, soft whisper. A soft smile lifted one corner of his mouth and he called out in the direction of the noise, “It would be a shame to be attacked, unarmed, in my own home.”

There was quick whispered argument, a short pause, and then a small staff was tossed over the chairs and clattered as it landed and skidded across the floor. He stooped to pick it up and, upon straightening, found himself facing a manipular with a similar weapon and incredibly determined expression.

“An ambush, then?” he asked, as he twirled the staff once to test its balance.

The manipular, his oldest child, simply shifted his weight and sprung forward, hoping to use the element of surprise to land a hit on his father. A side-step and quick parry were enough to block the attack, but the Didact again felt the pull of his instincts and spun on his heel, blocking the staff swung by a second child – one of his daughters. He tapped his staff against the child’s and took a step back.

“Two against one?”

The children exchanged a quick glance before the first shrugged a shoulder, “You _did_ say we needed a new tactic.”

The Didact nodded in approval of their new strategy and brought his staff to ready, an invitation to continue the unexpected sparring session. His children enthusiastically complied. It was obvious they’d been working on this new strategy for a while, as their jabs and strikes were working with one another to try and get through their father’s defense. The three jabbed and parried their way around the room as the sounds of colliding training staffs and occasional points of advice echoed off the walls.

After knocking one child on the hand and another on the shoulder, the Didact signaled a pause. He was about to give the pair a quick lesson in blocking when he heard a small battle cry from behind him. Somewhat startled, he pivoted and almost immediately felt something thump into his chest and clatter to the floor. He blinked in surprise and glanced down to see a training staff at his feet. Looking up he saw a _third_ child, standing on the back of a chair and looking incredibly proud of herself.

Letting his own staff fall to the ground, he clutched at his chest in mock pain and staggered a few steps to the side.

“Aya!” he exclaimed as he fell slowly to his knees and stared down at his own chest. “A mortal wound!”

He looked back up at his children, all of whom were visibly delighted with their successful strategy, and noticed his wife standing in the doorway, arms crossed in what was either disappointment or amusement. He stretched a hand toward her and called out,  “Avenge me, my love!” before collapsing onto his back with a dramatic and exaggerated death-moan.


	2. Lesson 2: Be Aware of Your Surroundings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Malfunctioning equipment and an indoor sparring session? What could possibly go wrong?

Close-quarters training sessions were something of an event in the estate.

Now that a few of his children were large enough to actually spar, the sessions had gone from small-scale affairs to large, free-for-all sparring festivals. Typically they managed keep it within a single room, but more than once they’d chased each other out into the halls and other rooms – usually this ended in a terse reprimand from whoever they ended up startling and an abrupt end to the training session.

The Librarian had decided to take the younger children on a field trip outside (and well out of the way) and the Didact found himself in the estate’s main gallery with his two eldest children. The cavernous hall blended Warrior and Lifeworker aesthetics in an intriguing mesh of clean, minimalist architecture and bright, lively terrariums and stasis bubbles of all sizes.

At a gesture, the furniture melted away into the floor. The smooth transition only interrupted by a sharp static snap from the hard light door of one of the larger terrariums. Both manipulars flinched in surprise and turned toward the sound of the noise; the Didact merely frowned. The stasis field across the front of the room-like cage had been acting up as of late and they had yet to get a Huragok to fix the issue.

“It’s just a power fluctuation,” he called out to the manipulars.

“ _Still?_ ” One asked, tone colored with playful insolence.

The Didact’s mouth pulled into a line and he didn’t answer. He put his hands up in a defensive position, dropped his center of gravity and waved for the children to attack. They eagerly complied, lunging at their father from two different directions, and the game was on.

For an hour the trio sparred their way around the space, changing between offense and defense, practicing different moves and their counters. The farther they got into the session, however, the looser their control was. What started as a mostly controlled sparring lesson had devolved into a veritable brawl. The Didact was holding back enough to not accidentally injure his children, but the manipulars were going all-out and trying everything they could to best their father.

Eventually they managed it – feinting and attacking from alternating angles until the Didact over-balanced and fell backwards. His shoulders struck a stasis field before he fell back enough to actually fall down. The stasis field crackled with the sudden contact.

The Didact moved to stand back upright, bracing his arm against the field and leaning heavily into one shoulder. The solid wall of hard light behind him buzzed loudly and vanished with a quiet pop, the solid surface he was leaning on replaced with empty air. Already severely off balance, the Didact had no choice but to obey gravity and fell onto his back with a surprised grunt.

He lay there silently cursing the faulty field and the manipulars came closer to see if he was alright. A few steps away they froze, eyes wide and staring into the now-open terrarium the Didact was now half in. He saw the reactions, stopped his mental swearing and slowly craned his head back.

“Oh no.”

He flung himself up and to the side, rolling out of the way and seeing his manipulars diving in the opposite direction as a flood of creatures poured out of the now-open entrance. Larger specimens crashed around the space and into each other while smaller ones scattered to the far corners or flew up into the ceiling. One of the automated doors opened as one of the large mammals got near it and a wave of animals charged through it and out to all corners of the estate.

The Didact stared after the animals as they escaped and glanced around at the few still stuck in the room with them.

“Well,” he began, “this seems like an excellent time for the next lesson .”

The manipulars stared at him in bewilderment and he continued, “ _Delegation_. Every commander knows when to delegate tasks to their subordinates. Like now. One of you,” here he pointed to emphasize the manipulars, “needs to explain this to your mother.”

Their bewilderment changed into a slow-dawning panic. They glanced at each other and back to their father.

“But you were the one that broke the door!”

“She doesn’t need to know that,” the Didact said, knowing full well she’d figure it out whether someone told her or not.

The manipulars dropped their shoulders, feeling an immense sense of impending doom; the Didact shared the feeling, perhaps more acutely, but tried to ignore it. He clapped them on the shoulders as he headed out to try to round up some of the specimens.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “She’s a lot less likely to try to murder you two.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sure Forerunner stuff doesn't malfunction and break this easily, but listen.


	3. Lesson 3: Responsibility

****The market was alive with color and noise. Merchants and customers hurried from one place to another and brightly colored banners hung from every available surface. Signs were posted in a myriad of languages and merchants shouted to each other and to their customers, trying to be heard over the chaos. Humans, for as efficient and organized as the rest of their society was, seemed to have a special love for setting up these temporary markets.

This one had cropped up in orbit around a small, uninhabited world in a relatively unremarkable system. Trade ships from a few different species and a multitude of worlds all congregated around a hastily constructed orbital station. Whether it had all been decided beforehand or just happened on a spontaneous whim, the Didact had absolutely no idea. As far as he could tell, there was no one entity in control and there didn’t appear to be any set rules for how the market worked. It just did.

The Librarian had learned of the market’s existence and, realizing the host system was surprisingly close to their own home, had insisted that they visit. A few hours later and here they were, wandering the maze of tables and shoppers. His wife and their eldest children had disappeared shortly upon their arrival, curiosity pulling them from station to station as they scattered into the crowd. It was an endearing trait, but one which left the Didact aimlessly wandering around, attempting to stay out of the way of the harried merchants.

He heard a soft gasp and looked up as the small child on his shoulders patted the top of his head excitedly to get his attention.

“Father, look!” she said, pointing somewhere ahead.

The Didact traced the direction and saw a loose rope pen corralling a dozen or so small, clumsy mammals. A stout, old human stood to one side, occasionally wiggling his fingers at the little creatures as they waddled around.

He glanced back up and saw the little face staring excitedly back down, silently begging to go see the little animals. It was difficult to say no, and it didn’t look like the Librarian would be ready to leave any time soon, so he worked his way through the crowds and over to the pen.

The human saw them coming and straightened up with a large smile on his face as the Didact crouched to let the manipular slide down from his shoulders. She immediately hurried to the little rope fence. One of the animals hooted in surprise at her sudden proximity.

“Careful,” the Didact warned. He didn’t know what these animals were, but the last thing he needed was for his daughter to get bitten by one.

“Oh, fuff,” the human said as he lifted a rope up out of the way. “Go in and pet ‘em if you want, kiddo. They won’t bite.”

She looked back at the Didact and he sighed inwardly and gave a little _go ahead_ wave. He and the human watched as she chased the animals around for a minute or two. They would let her get close and then, just as she went to pet them, would hoot and bound away. The human seemed to find it amusing and would chortle whenever the little animals ran off. As soon as the manipular started to get frustrated, though, he pulled a bucket of leafy greens out of seemingly nowhere and held it out to her.

“Try giving them some of these,” he said.

She grabbed two fistfuls of the crunchy leaves and almost immediately was swarmed, each animal trying to nudge the others out of the way to get as many leaves as possible. The human set the bucket down just outside of the ropes and stepped back.

“What are they,” the Didact asked.

“We call ‘em _Pheru_ ,” the human said. “Great little critters.”

There was an odd trailing tone, like the human was leading him into a question… or a sales pitch.

“We’re not going to buy one.”

“Mhmm… heard that before.”

The Didact fixed him with a flat look and the human shrugged.

“They are great little companions, though. Real sweet and real clever.”

“I’m sure.”

“Fully house-trained. And they only get to about, eh, this big.” He held a hand parallel to the ground, moving it from his knee to the middle of his thigh.

“Fascinating.”

The manipular yelped in surprise as one of the pheru licked the side of her head and another butted its head into her leg, trying to get more leafy treats. The human snorted a laugh and one of the pheru barked in reply.

“All original stock, too.”

“Original?”

The human nodded, looking some mix of unhappy or disgusted. “Some folks’re tryin’ to breed new traits into ‘em. Make ‘em more _styled_ and _quaint_. Ridiculous, if you ask me.”

He hadn’t, but it didn’t seem to matter to the human, who continued to rant. His ancilla informed him the Librarian was going to meet him at the ship whenever he was ready. _Finally_.

“Time to go,” he announced.

The child’s shoulders fell in disappointment and she turned sad eyes to her father, asking either for a few more minutes or to take one home.

“No,” he said.

Her face fell. “But–”

“No.”

“C’mon, friend,” the human added unhelpfully.

“ _No._ ”

 

* * *

 

 

The Librarian looked from the pheru (chewing on its lead), to her daughter (excitedly clutching the other end of the lead), to her husband (pointedly looking at anything but his wife). She herded the pair of younglings onto the ship and arched a questioning look at her husband.

“ _You_ ,” she said, “bought a pet?”

The Didact bristled and looked away. “It’s a… lesson in responsibility.”

Yes. That was it. It wasn’t that he caved; it was a lesson in personal responsibility.

The Librarian looked at him a moment longer and he continued to avoid her gaze. “Of course it was,” she said, with more than a little amusement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So for a while I imagined pheru as being sort of "dog-like" but then we were driving past some ranches on vacation and the little calves would chase the car as we drove down the road and the way they bounded around was just the cutest thing I've ever seen and I thought "yes"
> 
> So baby pheru = mini-sized baby cow


End file.
